


Pnévma

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Shinigami, M/M, More characters to be added, archive warnings will be added as time goes on, but i'll be adding more relationships, right now it's mainly only iwaoi, the rating will probs change too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5984994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He spread both his arms out, an insincere gesture of welcoming, and Iwaizumi couldn’t help but feel chills run down his spine as a wicked smile grew on Oikawa’s face. </p><p>"Welcome to the afterlife."</p><p>AU where Iwaizumi is the newly departed, unexpectedly robbed of a bright future. Oikawa is a high ranked shinigami, whose refusal to cooperate lands him an amateur's job.<br/>This could only work out splendidly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pnévma

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure there are lots of variations of this idea, but I thought of it on a whim and had to write something about it. I thought about tagging it as "major character death", but that's misleading bc it's an afterlife AU and everyone is still "alive", so yeah. this hasn't been beta read, so please forgive any mistakes or the atrocious writing.

Hajime’s death was nothing short of gruesome.

He supposed he should have expected it, when he leapt down onto the tracks to grab ahold of the little girl who had fallen. She had the worst timing to teeter over the edge while chasing after a dropped toy, her mother shrieking as the subway bore down with blaring headlights. The driver had slammed on the brakes, judging by the ear-piercing screech of the wheels, but it was obviously too late.

And so Iwaizumi had jumped, abandoning his gym bag on the tiles behind him. He remembered shoving – no, _tossing_ – the girl to the side, hoping someone would grab her or she’d slide onto the platform on her own. And then unyielding tons of steel slammed into him, his body crumpling underneath the wheels. There were a few seconds of blinding, excruciating pain accompanied by a sharp, acrid smell. Then, nothing.

* * *

 

He woke up with the sun in his eyes, the breeze ruffling his hair, grass soft below him. He laid there for a moment, blinking slowly in confusion, and then instantly jolted upright. He was surrounded by the expanse of a spacious field skirted by numerous trees tilting back and forth in the light wind. There were other fields occupying rolling hills around him, although some looked more like cultivated farmland, proof that there was human activity. He’d never seen the place in his life, but it was picturesque and peaceful, the slightest hint of ocean salt lingering in the air. It was as though he’d been transported to the coast of Greece. Nothing at all like what he last remembered, the dirty tiles of the subway station, the incoming trains, the burning.

He slowly climbed to a standing position, his muscles aching as though he’d been through an intensive workout. He glanced down at his clothes as he began to stretch, and immediately froze in surprise, stomach dropping in brief panic.

He was in a familiar outfit, the fitted t-shirt and sweatpants that he usually wore on his way home from the gym. But they were completely soaked through with what seemed to be a mixture of blood and oil, the shirt half torn to shreds. Almost in a panic, he ripped it off, expecting the skin underneath to mirror the state of his clothing.

His chest and stomach were untouched, tanned skin heaving in and out as he examined himself for any injuries. There were none. He let the ruined fabric drop from his hand as a sigh escaped his lips, but even he didn’t know if it was from sheer relief or horror. He must be dead, that was the only conclusion. He vividly remembered the subway, all the other events leading up to that before he had walked to the station. And now he was in this unfamiliar area, a strange terrain of some sort he’d never seen before in his life. Was it heaven?

“Well, you’re rather full of yourself, aren’t you?”

A casual voice from behind startled Iwaizumi, his head whipping around to find the source. A slender brunette man with a smirk leaned against a nearby olive tree. He was poised in a deliberately carefree manner, examining his nails as though they were a highly fascinating subject. His outfit seemed rather old fashioned, an aquamarine tunic accompanied by a leather belt and brown cloth pants, one perfectly polished boot crossed over the other. Even stranger yet, there seemed to be a gilded sheath hanging from his belt, the handle of a sword visible.

All Iwaizumi could do was dumbly gape, processing the sight that seemed straight out of a history textbook. The other man, sensing his stare, finally raised his eyes, ochre meeting coal. The two men simply looked at one another until the brunette lowered his gaze, smirk deepening and his voice full of amusement.

“You’re quite nicely built too.”

Caught off guard by the mention of his lack of a shirt, Iwaizumi was bewildered. Or irritated. Or both. After all he’d been through, the only person around to supply answers just had to be a frustrating one. Somehow Iwaizumi wasn’t surprised that he’d have such bad luck even post-death. At least, Iwaizumi was assuming he was actually dead. Maybe this was all just an elaborate hoax and a TV crew was going to come surging up the hill to scream, “PUNKED.”

“Can you tell me –” Iwaizumi’s voice came out raspier than he expected, as though he hadn’t used it for a long time. It took him a moment to start over. “Do you know where this is? How did I get here?” He tried to sound as polite as he could, but it was hard when the other man was giving him that smug expression, obviously uninterested in Iwaizumi’s situation.  

The brunette’s smirk didn’t drop, the wiry man simply placing his hands on his hips with a haughty laugh. “How about you guess first? I’ll tell you if you’re right or wrong, and you have unlimited tries. That’s a fun game, right? Although you don’t look like you’re the type to have fun very often.”

Iwaizumi felt a surge of actual anger well up, mixed with a growing sense of anxiety. None of this was right, nothing made sense. He wasn’t sure if it was all just a dream, if he had actually died, where he was, where home was. One moment he was at a practice match with his team, heading home after a long day of classes and volleyball. The next, he was standing by himself in a sunny location he’d never seen, confronted by someone who was either in historical cosplay or just insane. If the cosplayer thought this was a joke, he was about to learn otherwise.

“This isn’t a game, you asshole,” Iwaizumi took several strides forward, rising fury boiling in his veins. It must’ve been clear he wasn’t in a joking mood, because the brunette actually seemed startled, the grin briefly dropping from his symmetrical face. Iwaizumi would’ve grabbed him by the collar, but his fist closed around empty air, a blow dealt to the back of one of his legs sending him collapsing onto his knees in shock. In half a second, the man had somehow maneuvered around him and gotten the upper hand. In the next second, he felt cold metal against his neck, sharp and deadly still.

“If you try that again, I’ll chop off your hand,” The brunette’s voice was a low hiss in his ear, and Iwaizumi felt his eyes widen in shock. He resisted the urge to flinch when the sword was removed from his neck, hearing it slide back into the sheath behind him. “You can get up now, as long as you don’t do anything stupid, _Iwa_.”

Hearing his own name abbreviated by the man was more than unsettling. Iwaizumi climbed to his feet, his heart pounding. “You know my name.” It felt like less of a question and more a simple statement as he turned to face the other male.

The brunette just laughed. “Yes, Iwaizumi Hajime, I know your name and much more than that. You were still in college, a senior on the volleyball team. You were studying medicine, but you loved volleyball too much to drop it once you left high school. Your favorite food was agedashi tofu and your childhood hobby was catching bugs in your backyard. You were generally a reserved person, and you still liked Godzilla as a grown man. Which is probably why you didn’t get many girls confessing to you.”

Iwaizumi ignored the jibe at the end, feeling his pulse thudding in his chest. Who _was_ this man?

“Oikawa Tooru,” the man simply stated, as though he had read Iwaizumi’s mind. “And as unfortunate as it is, I guess you could call me your guardian spirit.” He spread both his arms out, an insincere gesture of welcoming, and Iwaizumi couldn’t help but feel chills run down his spine as a wicked smile grew on Oikawa’s face.

“Welcome to the afterlife.”

* * *

 

Tooru knew that losing his temper had been a careless mistake, but at the time, he couldn’t bring himself to feel very sorry. He didn’t act very apologetic at the trial either, shrugging everything off as nonchalantly as he could even under the disapproving watch of the jury. He thought he didn’t care about the consequences, what was the worst they could do? Put him on probation for maybe a week or two? He was a high ranked shinigami, irreplaceable with the kind of numbers he had. Put a sword in his hand and there was hardly an enemy out there who stood a chance, there was no way they’d inflict anything serious.

So when he’d cheerfully been informed by Daichi that his punishment was assuming the beginner’s role of collecting a soul to supervise out in the middle of Nowhere Farmland, Oikawa had been outraged. He remembered following Daichi down the main hall of the Colosseum, protesting voice carrying loudly down various offices and lecture halls. “You can’t possibly be serious, the last time I did anything like that was practically two centuries ago, you can’t let them do this,” Oikawa’s voice kept rising in pitch as it became evident Daichi wasn’t going to budge.

“Listen, Oikawa, I respect your skill and experience as a fellow shinigami. Everyone here does. But rules are rules, and Sugawara and the others thought it was appropriate you humble yourself a bit. You’ve never gotten along with the other shinigami because you’ve never _tried_ to. This is a good place to start.” Daichi’s reassuring tone only pissed Oikawa off infinitely more. He had nothing against Daichi, but it was so difficult working with such a goody two shoes. Especially a good two shoes who was debatably rolling around in bed with their silver haired boss. Sugawara might’ve been a literal angel, but not one that was sympathetic at all to Oikawa’s plight.  

“Look, I’ll do anything, even paperwork for, like, a whole week,” Oikawa couldn’t stand begging, but he couldn’t stand the prospect of such a lousy, degrading job. Interacting with the newly dead was the biggest pain in the ass, and he didn’t have the patience to greet a typical, stupidly confused face with a big smile. “I’ll buy you lunch for the entire year, or how about I just knock off a few of your targets for you? More time for you to spend with your little angel hubby, am I right?”

Apparently the deal wasn’t tempting enough, because Daichi just frowned and picked up the pace, leaving a pouting Oikawa standing alone at the columned entrance of the building. “Don’t shirk your duties, or you’ll be serving more time.” The dark haired man accompanied the warning with a final glare. Oikawa resisted the urge to childishly yell an insult back, instead just leaning against one of the nearby columns and running a hand through his hair. He exhaled slowly and took in the view of the city, trying to convince himself the next couple of weeks weren’t going to be hell.

* * *

 

Iwaizumi’s shoelaces were dragging. He nearly tripped headfirst after stepping on one and had to pause to tie them, well aware that Oikawa wasn’t about to wait up for him. The mundane act of lacing his shoe seemed so out of place now, surrounded by this strange environment. It wasn’t heaven, he’d determined that much. But it wasn’t quite hell either…unless you counted a certain asshole who was currently leading the way to Who Knows Where, Afterlife.  

When he finished tying his shoe and looked up, Oikawa was gone. That was predictable, Iwaizumi bitterly thought, jogging down the rest of the hill and scanning the fields. He finally caught sight of a brunette head of hair and tall figure – how did he move so fast, dammit – yards ahead.

“Could you maybe slow down a little?” Iwaizumi grumbled as he managed to catch up, glaring daggers at the back of the other man’s head.

“Could you maybe hurry up a little?”

Oikawa’s retort was instantaneous, easily brushing Iwaizumi off with a bad imitation. He didn’t bother slowing down either, his long legs moving at the same fast pace as before. It wasn’t as though Iwaizumi couldn’t keep up, but the sheer lack of consideration was impressive. He couldn’t recall meeting anyone as bad as this in the real world.

“At least explain to me where we’re going. How long do these fields extend?” Iwaizumi figured it was worth a try, although every other time he’d tried to ask questions, they’d been ignored. Before he got a response, however, a voice caught his attention over on the right.

He was surprised to see someone else out in a wheat field, only this time, it seemed to be a farmer of some sort. Whoever they were, they had spiky red hair and were whistling a loud tune, a large scythe casually thrown over one shoulder. He glanced up briefly from walking to look at Iwaizumi and Oikawa, waving a gloved hand.

Iwaizumi was about to wave back, somewhat relieved to see that other people really did exist in this strange world, but Oikawa cut him off with a shout. “Your whistling capabilities are atrocious, Tendou! I’m shocked your ugly farmer boyfriend isn’t out there with you right now.”  

The redhead, apparently Tendou, just laughed loudly, pointing the scythe in Oikawa’s direction and taking a few steps forward. “Good one, you’re as witty as ever. But you don’t seem to be in a position to talk.” The redhead’s grin grew wider. “The Grand King herding new souls into Olympia? What is this, amateur hour? I mean, I heard you got booted for violating regulation, but this is just too good to be true.”

Oikawa stopped walking, hand flying to the hilt of his sword. Iwaizumi could see his jaw clench, something dark and dangerous flashing in his eyes. The air around him seemed to change temperature, Iwaizumi feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Across the field, Tendou shifted uncomfortably, the scythe lowering a fraction of an inch.

And then the moment passed, Oikawa’s palm sliding away from his sword and instead waving nonchalantly in the air. “I’m not going to bicker with someone so consistently at the bottom of the ranks.” With that, he continued on his way, self-assured and self-confident, as though he hadn’t just been ready to engage in a fight.

Iwaizumi stood there for a moment, slightly confused, watching as Tendou made a face at Oikawa’s back and twirled his scythe. He caught sight of Iwaizumi’s stare, looking right back at him. “Good luck having that one as your shinigami, I feel bad for you.” Tendou offered him a last wave and threw the scythe back over his shoulder, walking the other way through the wheat.

That left Iwaizumi a lot to mull over as he set off once again after Oikawa. All the talk of shinigami, of regulation and ranking, herding new souls into Olympia. Was that the name of their location? And obviously this kind of work wasn’t Oikawa’s usual job, since he’d apparently been booted from something or another. Iwaizumi suppressed the urge to groan, instead choosing to run an aggravated hand through his hair. Why couldn’t his shinigami spirit guardian person be someone genuinely nice and willing to give him answers? Why was everything so confusing?

Why did he have to die so soon?

That question was the most depressing of them all. Already, Iwaizumi was missing home, his mother and father sitting at the dining table with warm smiles, glad to see him home from college on the weekends. His friends, proud fist bumps and cheers on the volleyball court, late nights in the libraries studying together, passing notes in class. His future, high grades and dreams of a diploma, medical school such an achievably close goal. All of it was so close, so recent, so familiar and yet…somehow when he remembered these things, they seemed so distant. Like he was looking back on a half-forgotten memory, through foggy glass.

He hadn’t been ready when he’d made the choice to jump. And he wasn’t ready now, aimlessly following someone else through some afterlife dreamland, where nothing made sense. Iwaizumi was starting to wish he hadn’t woken up to anything at all.

“Your parents.”

Oikawa’s questioning voice startled Iwaizumi, and he realized that the brunette had slowed his pace, walking only a few feet away. He didn’t make eye contact with Iwaizumi as he spoke, keeping his light eyes fixed somewhere ahead.

“What were they like, I mean?”

Iwaizumi felt his eyes widen, taken aback by the question, let alone the fact Oikawa was now talking to him. But he decided to answer anyway, the words distracting him from his thoughts. “They’re nice people. Really nice, actually. My mom is a schoolteacher and all the kids love her. All my friends still remember her class and visit from time to time. And my dad is an accountant, I’ve never seen him in a bad mood.  They love each other a lot. They’ve always been really supportive of me, helping support me through college and -” Iwaizumi cut off, the words _medical school_ drifting unsaid in the air.

“You talk about them in the present.” Oikawa said it with a contemplating tone, tilting his head slightly as he looked over. Iwaizumi stared back, his eyes taking in the straight contours of Oikawa’s nose, the high cheekbones, the bow of his pursed lips. Then he averted his gaze, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

“I mean, they’re still alive, aren’t they? I only saw them yesterday…or what feels like yesterday.” His shoe scraped against the root of a tree, but he managed to catch himself before he stumbled. Oikawa didn’t respond, looking deep in thought. Iwaizumi was thankful he wasn’t half running to keep up.

The terrain was becoming less smooth and more mountainous, the hills getting steeper. They walked in silence for a while before Oikawa spoke again. “It’s been a long time since I was living. I’ve forgotten all of it by now.” His tone sounded strangely void of emotion. “You really don’t remember anything? Not even family?” Iwaizumi couldn’t imagine forgetting the faces of his parents.

Oikawa’s face closed off, and his gait sped up again, refusing to answer. “I’m sorry, was that too intrusive?” Iwaizumi felt guilty for asking.

“What, did you think I was going to exchange some deep thoughts with the annoying newly dead? Don’t be ridiculous, and pick up the pace, we’re nearly there. Of course I get stuck with the lumbering idiots of the world.” Iwaizumi could see half of a smirk growing on the brunette’s face again.

He sighed. Back to square one, then.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> aaaand hopefully that wasn't too painful to read. I'll try to explain more about how the afterlife system works later on. I'll also try to work on this as much as possible so I can update regularly and not spiral off into distractions like I usually do. please feel free to leave your thoughts and criticism in the comments, or talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/cyborgtoaster).


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